Is Israel Again Being Deprived of Vital Intelligence Data?

March 7, 1997 - Dr. Manfred R. Lehmann

The prestigious

British Intelligence Digest

has reported that the Clinton Administration is withholding vital intelligence data from Israel, and has stopped sharing intelligence with Israel on Iran's nuclear plans, for fear of damaging the United States' relations with Russia, which has again become a major supporter of Iran.

Iran is known for its strategic ambition to become the undisputed leader of the Islamic world. Iran cannot gain this position by right - because of its adherence to the minority Shiite creed - so it must earn it by its unwavering commitment to the "liberation" of Jerusalem.

Iran is therefore doing everything to neutralize Israel's atomic deterrent by acquiring atomic weapons of it own. Against this background, British Intelligence Digest stresses the importance for Israel to be completely informed about military developments between Moscow and Tehran, and that it is difficult to understand that

Washington considers it more important to appease Moscow than to safeguard Israel's security

.

Shades of the Pollard Affair

Although very little has appeared in the press about the background to the Jonathan Pollard affair, it has been widely reported that he was privy to highly sensitive intelligence concerning Iraq's covert efforts to build long range missiles and mass destruction weapons. Once known to Washington,

this information should have been immediately transmitted to Israel under the terms of a bilateral intelligence-sharing agreement between the two countries

.

Pollard evidently found out that due to an undeclared intelligence embargo, similar to the one reported now about Iran, knowledge about Iraq's secret strategic weapons program had been deliberately withheld from the Jewish state. It was at that point that Pollard took it upon himself, according to general reports, to supply the intelligence to Israel.

This is what Yosef Begun, former Russia Prisoner of Zion, wrote in the Jerusalem Post: "Pollard gave Israel information about treacherous Iraqi plans against the Jewish state. During the Gulf War, it was clear that Saddam Hussein would stop at nothing to cause irreparable harm to Israel. Pollard, realizing that the Pentagon wanted to conceal this information vital for Israel's security, gave it to Israel." (September 2, 1996)

In 1985, when this happened, Iraq was the greatest danger to Israel's security. Today it is Iran. If Washington's withholding intelligence information from Israel is confirmed, it is indeed a very serious development which throws light upon the decreasing importance which the Clinton administration attaches to this country's

only time-tested, reliable ally in the Middle East, namely Israel

.

We must hope and pray that just as Israel was spared the hazards and dangers created by the withholding of intelligence reports in 1985, she will again prevail against the hostile plans against her now coming to the foreground.